On the importance of listening and storytelling with Braylan Gray

Hi Braylan! Let’s start off with the basics. What do you do at DocuSign?

I’m a Product Designer on DocuSign’s Enterprise Sign team. I work to improve the customer flow for sending and signing documents.

How did you get your start in Product Design?

I originally started at an advertising agency, where I worked as a production designer. Though I mostly worked with print ads, part of the duties of this role included tweaking and prepping web banners. This piqued my interest in web and digital design.

After advertising, I joined a small startup as their sole designer. For them, I was strictly focused on digital as I worked to design their SaaS product, marketing website, and email communications.

From there, I transitioned to working for a few different digital agencies and startups, designing interfaces for various business categories (food service, hospitality, financial services, travel, etc) and then eventually landed my first in-house product design role at Target. Two years later, I joined DocuSign.

As you’ve grown as a designer, what is the most important skill we should leverage? I’d love to hear more about how this has influenced your work.

In my opinion, listening is the most important skill we use as designers. Whether it’s customers or stakeholders, listening to either party informs how we move forward in our design decisions. Customers tell us pain points, desires, and moments of delight in using our products, and stakeholders serve as valuable partners in offering additional context, historical product knowledge, and points of view.

As an example, at DocuSign I’m currently working on unifying the web prepare and sending experience across our customer base (trial, small business, and enterprise). In the current phase of work, we are concurrently conducting user-testing sessions with customers and having shareouts with internal stakeholders. This process involves listening to customers tell us how they use DocuSign in their workflow and what they think of the experimental designs we are proposing, while also listening to internal partners give their expertise on specific areas of the product we should be considering.

For me, I try to make it a point to do more listening than speaking. Oftentimes, this practice yields a much deeper understanding and compass for the design decisions I’m making. Additionally, even when I’m speaking or presenting my work I’m still listening. I’m paying attention to my audience’s body language and facial expressions to see if my words or work are resonating.

“Whether it’s customers or stakeholders, listening to either party informs how we move forward in our design decisions.”

How does storytelling fit in your practice as a designer?

This definitely speaks to my early career in advertising, where we were responsible for selling goods and services through messaging (audio, written, visual, etc).

Product design is very similar. One thing I’ve learned is that you can have an amazing design that checks all the boxes, but if you can’t tell the story behind it you will have a hard time selling it to others. Storytelling is so important for getting buy-in and communicating designs to different stakeholders. Paired with deep listening, you can figure out what matters most to your intended audience and craft a story that resonates with them most. When communicating my designs, the story I’d tell another designer is vastly different from the story I’d tell a product manager or an engineer…or even a user. This is all in service of being inclusive to all necessary parties and giving them peace of mind that their points of view, needs, and concerns are being considered and addressed.

As mentioned above, I’m working to unify a common experience for multiple user categories and that entails concepting a new design direction. When I tell the story of the design to product managers and fellow designers, I put more emphasis on how the user experience solves customer and business problems. However, when I tell the story of the design to engineering the majority of the emphasis goes to details around feasibility and implementation.

“…you can have an amazing design that checks all the boxes, but if you can’t tell the story behind it you will have a hard time selling it to others.”

Lastly, let’s talk about what motivates you outside of work. I hear you do portrait photography in your spare time. How did you get started with that?

Yes, portrait photography… I love it! I specifically enjoy doing a mix of editorial, lifestyle, and fashion portraiture. For me, portrait photography is a great creative outlet from my day-to-day work. Though product design is a creative field it’s also VERY analytical, and with portraiture, it’s less about data, frameworks, and processes and more about conveying a mood and bringing the viewer into a different place or emotion. It also gives me the opportunity to meet new and interesting people.

Want to learn more about Braylan? Check out his photography on Instagram or connect with him on LinkedIn

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